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WiFi costs now changing from per day to per flight?

Flyingforfun
Explorer A

Just read an article online that stated that wifi onboard will no longer be eight dollars a day, but eight dollars a flight. So if you have a connecting flight it's sixteen dollars for wifi? Isn't this adding insult to injury after all the events of the past few months?

 

Southwest is raising wi-fi fees for passengers with connecting flights

5 REPLIES 5

Re: WiFi costs now changing from per day to per flight?

TheMiddleSeat
Aviator A

The upside is they are bringing in a new vendor who can (hopefully) provide better service. The downside is they are separate systems and thus have to separate the charges. The simplest and most uniform way of doing that is to charge for each flight. I agree it's not the most customer friendly move, mostly because the current offering is so poor that it's hard to justify charging for and now they are going to charge more for those who have connections. 

 

--TheMiddleSeat

Re: WiFi costs now changing from per day to per flight?

floridaguy
Aviator C

For most people, the idea of paying for wifi on a two hour or less flight isn't worth it.  However, if you do buy it, it has to work.

 

During the flight, there is time and the beginning and ending of the flight when the wifi is off so subtracting that from your total flight time leaves very little useful time for the wifi.  

 

I just wait in most cases, but when I do buy it, I typically get refunds in more than half of the cases due to poor performance.

Re: WiFi costs now changing from per day to per flight?

sr103
Explorer A

Hopefully the next annoucement will be all WiFi is free for A-List and above. 

 

This response does not at all reflect the loyal and frequent customers.

"This impacts a small subset of customers due to our robust network of nonstop flights,

 

When was the last non-stop SWA you used?  Pre-Covid?  Many routes now have connections, and ALL my routes do.  But never fear, I will never buy another WiFi connection on SWA, nor will many others. 

Re: WiFi costs now changing from per day to per flight?

bec102896
Aviator A

@sr103 wrote:

When was the last non-stop SWA you used?  Pre-Covid?  Many routes now have connections, and ALL my routes do.  But never fear, I will never buy another WiFi connection on SWA, nor will many others. 


Well luckily for me with my home airport being AUS they have lots of non stop flight options (although I’m weird and find the most random connections to get me to my destination instead of the non stop) I know that’s not the case for every city which will be unfortunate for those who want Wi-Fi for the whole trip 

 

I guess my compromise would be just raise the cost for a day pass because yes it can get costly if you have multiple connections

 

maybe the thinking is with the cost going up some won’t pay for the Wi-Fi making speeds faster for the handful that still pay the higher cost. Also a lot of people who need the Wi-Fi for work write off the Wi-Fi cost as a business expense so some don’t care about the cost 

 

one thing I would like to see change with the price going up allow people to switch Wi-Fi to a different device in case one of you devices dies during the flight. 

Re: WiFi costs now changing from per day to per flight?

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@bec102896 wrote:

@sr103 wrote:

When was the last non-stop SWA you used?  Pre-Covid?  Many routes now have connections, and ALL my routes do.  But never fear, I will never buy another WiFi connection on SWA, nor will many others. 


 

 

one thing I would like to see change with the price going up allow people to switch Wi-Fi to a different device in case one of you devices dies during the flight. 


This would be nice, I did see it on my one trip on the other guys.

 

The other guys also had two price tiers where you could buy a couple of hours or else pay much more for duration of your trip (it might have even been for 8 hours and not the full trip duration) which compared to $8/day I was like "ugh" but if the price is going up this might be a good way to break it into bite size wifi.

 

 

 

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.